Only Human
by Newf
Summary: Jate. Post-TTLG. Kate helps Jack when he is at his worst.


Looks like this one is either going to have two or three parts. I haven't decided yet. **Jimelda **wanted something post-TTLG with a little Jack TLC so I had to oblige.

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**Only Human**

One thing Jack never learned how to do was let go. He dreamed of the island, the breakers as they split the shore line, white caps and bleached-bone coloured sand. When he closed his eyes the resounding surf actually seemed to get louder―like rolling thunder. It never really went away, sometimes he was better at ignoring it than others, but he could never seem to turn it off. It was impossible to tell at which point that it had become a part of him, when the waves seemed almost as natural as an extra breath; the kind that kept him awake at night, always teetering on the edge.

Sometimes when he let himself get drunk enough it was like he was actually there. It took a lot, but the pills kept him snowed under so that he didn't have to think. It was easier that way.

"He gave himself a good whack on the head trying to pull a woman and her son out of a burning car. Typical Jack." A voice above him gave a little chuckle. On some level Jack knew he should be paying attention, but the sounds kept drifting in and out of phase and the lull of the waves drew him in closer.

"Definitely a concussion. You're gonna have to wake him up every four hours or so." Marc Silverman looked almost apologetic.

"I didn't know where else to bring him, Kate. They brought him in just as my shift was ending."

"So you thought I'd take him." Kate fixed the man with a severe look.

Something flickered in Marc's expression and he did his best not to look stricken. The polished hardwood at his feet suddenly seemed all the more interesting. "Kate," he sighed, not daring to look up.

"The past few months I've had to sit back and watch my best friend fall apart on me."

"Don't you dare." She tore into him with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "That isn't fair to Aaron or me. We didn't do this to him he..."

"He's in shock." Marc finished sternly, regaining his confidence enough to raise his head. "Whatever happened to you guys out there, it did something to him. He came in tonight with a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit and he was half stoned out of his head."

"All the more reason why I can't have him here," she spat bitterly, throwing a sideways glance to the figure haphazardly sprawled off across her couch.

He followed her gaze. "If it was anyone else I'd agree with you, but this is Jack we're talking about."

"No. That _used_ to be Jack," she muttered.

"He'd do it for you." Marc said suddenly, his pale grey eyes burning with a dauntless resolve. "If the situation were reversed and it was you on that couch instead of him. He'd do it for you."

Kate felt her stomach do a slow roll. She stared at Marc, part of her wondering where his sudden burst of determination was coming from.

"You let him get this far." Marc emphasized. When he had showed up at her door at 5am with Jack slung over his shoulder he hadn't expected her to let them past the front door...yet here they were.

"As opposed to what? Leaving him on my doorstep and hoping he'd find his own way home?" She bore down on him in a tone that suggested he had forced her hand.

"Sarah did," the man huffed with a slight shake of his head. "The hospital called her, guess he hadn't gotten around to updating his emergency contact information, he just asked her for a ride home and she left him high and dry."

That did it. He could literally see the thoughts turning in Kate's mind as the set of her jaw changed.

"Wait. She left him in this condition?"

"She left him period." He snorted. "Yeah, I know Jack has his quirks sometimes, but the poor guy didn't deserve to be strung along like that."

His words alone were enough to make her want to throw up. She and Marc had never really found the time to sit and talk about anything. Though they were childhood friends, he wasn't around much. The few moments Jack did manage to allot for the two of them to watch a game or go jogging together were scarce at best. Jack had never offered up much about his failed marriage and she never dared to ask.

"She cheated on him?" She asked with a harsh breath. Somehow she already knew the answer. It suddenly made sense why he had reacted so strongly when she refused to tell him what she was doing for Sawyer. His experiences didn't make his actions right, but it seemed to quell some of the anger that she was harbouring toward him.

"Yeah." He agreed. "Then his Dad died, oh and he was in a plane crash..." Marc trailed off. "He hasn't exactly had it easy."

"What do I do to help him?" It was her turn to look down, amazed at how quickly the man had brought her to her knees.

Kate thought about it. This was the same man who was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt when nobody else would. She couldn't count the number of second chances he had given her. If she turned him away she would be holding him to the same standard that everyone else seemed to―perfect.

It was at that moment she realized that Jack Shephard was only human...just like the rest of them.

Marc offered a warm smile. "It's Jack, you know how he is. Don't be afraid to go sit on him and beat some common sense into him if you have to."

His words were enough to tease a little smile across her terse lips.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, he's probably going to be a pain in the ass when he wakes up."

"He's always a pain in the ass," she tried to joke.

"True enough," he agreed. "But ya just gotta remember that our Jack is still in there somewhere. You just have to try and find a way to get him to realize that." Marc shoved his hand in his coat pocket and extracted a white paper bag which he set on the coffee table in front of him.

"What's that?" She could make out a distinct pill bottle shape from the way the paper was folded.

"Naltrexone," he frowned. "He's got enough crap in his system that taking him off it right away isn't going to be pretty. Make sure he takes this three times a day to try and help curb the cravings."

"He's gonna get pretty bad huh?" Kate really didn't want to imagine how he could possibly get any worse. She shifted enough so that she could really get a good look at him. It had been months since she had ever been this close. It bothered her to think about how much weight he had lost. She noted the wisps of grey hairs forming a tight weave through his over grown beard, wondering how itchy it had to make the skin underneath. He was paler than she had ever seen him and it made her worry just how much time he spent in the rundown Bronco, stoned out of his mind as he watched the planes take off the tarmac.

Marc's face remained firm. "He's gonna be damn lucky to have you and Aaron around to help him through it. It'll be good for him to be on the receiving end for a change."

"You really think he's still Jack?" She sounded apprehensive, but she knew her resolve was wavering.

"He got that bump on his head pulling a woman and her son out of a burning vehicle. So yeah, he's still Jack...just maybe a little rougher around the edges." He forced an uncharacteristic smile out of her.

"Come on," he teased playfully. "Ya gotta get him better so you can kick his ass at golf again."

"He told you about that huh?"

The doctor grinned. "I heard all about how his amazingly sexy and smart girlfriend managed to beat his sorry butt. I think he had all intentions of dragging you out to that golf club of his for a rematch."

"Flattery isn't going to help your case." Kate warned.

Marc shrugged. "His words, not mine."

She didn't say anything for a long time. Something she couldn't place tugged at her chest as she felt the wounds that Jack had managed to inflict on her heart being ripped open all over again.

"I don't want Aaron to see him like this." She motioned to his prone form on the couch. "Can you help me get him upstairs?"

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The sound of the waves broke away from him with a loud buzzing. It was the kind of sensation familiar to being roused from a very deep sleep. He could feel his heart thudding against the wall of his chest too quickly for his own comfort, only half aware that he was panting heavily.

Something jabbed him hard in the ribs making him grunt and roll stiffly onto his side. Jack blinked, but his stomach did a flip flop before he could take inventory of his surroundings. He propelled himself off the bed at break-neck speed, barely aware of how a pair of slender hands guided him into the bathroom.

It took every ounce of strength Kate had to hold him up enough so that he could drape his arms over the toilet seat, which he only just cleared as he emptied his stomach contents and then some. The pain-filled moan that rose after the last chunks had been flushed away racked through his very core.

"Deep breaths, okay Jack?" She murmured as she arranged his limbs so that he was still propped against the toilet without her having to worry about him cracking his skull open on the tiled floor. She knew what it was like to have a hangover, but she was fairly confident from the ashen glow creeping across his face, that all previous experiences couldn't quite compare to what he must be feeling.

"Kate?" He tried to roll his head toward the sound of her voice. She gently pressed on the back of his neck to halt the motion.

"Kate...I..." Whatever he was going to say faded into another bout of dry heaves.

"Okay...okay," she soothed, letting her hand slide further down his bare back. It had been hours since he had been stripped down to his boxers and left to sleep it off.

Kate raked her knuckles against his shoulder blades, providing a firm pressure to try and draw his thoughts away from what was happening to the rest of his body.

"I can't...I can't..." he trailed in between gasps. What he meant, she wasn't sure; couldn't even tell if he knew himself. "Gotta go back...can't do this...can't."

"Jack," she interrupted his ramblings. "Jack, I need you to focus on me okay? Don't worry about anything else right now except trying to relax." She dug her thumbs into the coiled muscles in his back for emphasis.

Marc had warned her that his head injury was probably going to make him a little disoriented. Gauging from the glassy look he gave her as he tried to turn around, she knew the man was right.

"Alright," she sighed, suddenly glad she had the right of mind to ask Veronica to take Aaron to the park. Jack was in no shape to be doing much of anything.

"Alright."She repeated again, trying to reassure herself more so than anything else. She wrinkled her nose as she reached across him to flush the toilet. The sound made him lurch upward and she caught him from smashing his chin on seat.

He tried to wriggle away from the hands creating a buffer between his face and the hard plastic. He didn't know what was going on and why he was suddenly feeling so restrained. He needed another dose to keep the edge off, but he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone move.

Kate sized him up and did her best to bite back the frown that was threatening to score her features. He needed a god damn fix. She knew it wasn't fair to take all their problems out on him when he was like this. There would be time for reconciliation later.

"We're gonna get you in a nice warm bath and get you cleaned up okay?" She told him gently as she manoeuvred herself so that she could perch on the edge of the tub to get the water running while still holding on to him to keep him upright.

He shivered against her and she turned the water temperature up an extra notch for good measure.

"Jack," she prompted, watching how he squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of her voice. She could no longer tell if he was actually alert and just embarrassed or if he was genuinely in pain. "I can't lift you so you're gonna have to help me here."

Kate gave his arm a tug, making him groan loudly.

"Jack, you smell really bad, you know that? We need to get you cleaned up." She stood and yanked him up with her. He was as pliable as a ragdoll, barely flinching as she worked his boxers down and guided him into the tub.

"Is that warm enough?"

He brought his knees up to his chest instead of answering and curled his arms around his body.

"You're gonna have to talk to me at some point, Jack." She warned, barely breaking through the fog his mind had sunk into.

"I know it's at least partly my fault for letting you get like this and when you get better we're gonna talk about everything." It was a promise to herself more so than to him. She reached across to smooth back the thin bandage sealing the stitches over his eyebrow. The edges of skin peaking out had already started to turn purple where a large bruise was forming.

"You're still in there, Jack. I know you are." Kate assured him. "You just gotta let yourself believe it."

He was about as uncooperative as Aaron at bath time as she attempted to wash his stomach. Intentional or not she didn't know, but he sat rigid and curled in on himself whenever she attempted to get the cloth anywhere close to his skin.

"Jack!" She huffed with annoyance, shaking her head when he managed to drench half the bathroom tile in his attempts to fight her off. Here he was concussed, hungover, barely awake, and possibly still high and he was still fighting her― typical Jack.

Her secret weapon was a generous helping of lavender and sandalwood bubble bath she procured in as she topped up the hot water. She had tricked him into taking a bubble bath with her once before after he had lost a patient on the operating table and wanted nothing better to do than sit around in front of the television and drown his sorrows in a bottle of scotch. It didn't take all that much to get him into the tub, but keeping him there after he watched her dump what he maintained as 'purple goop' into the water was another story.

Kate had decided long ago that convincing Jack to do something he didn't want to do was all about distracting him. In this case, she had kept him talking until the saltatory properties of the concoction left his muscles feeling heavy and sated and he had trouble fighting the warm sleepy sensation produced by the aromatically infused steam filling the room. It was at that point that she had gotten Jack Shephard to admit that he could maybe tolerate 'girly bubble baths' every once in a while.

She was thankful it still seemed to have the same effect on him this time around. She let him sit for a moment, breathing in the heavily scented air, and it wasn't long before his already glassy eyes started to droop heavily. Her ministrations only accelerated the process, ebbing away at whatever pain was gripping him and turning him in to something dopey and cooperative.

"You need a shave, Jack." She pointed out as she finished cleaning his back.

He barely reacted to the sound of her voice and Kate realized the warm, honeyed scents were starting to make her sleepy as well. She stared hard at Jack. She had convinced him to recline, into the warm water, allowing the porcelain perimeter to fully support his weight while she kept his head cushioned against one of those frilly inflatable bath pillows that he hated. Even when his eyes were closed he still managed to look utterly exhausted.

The beard had added an entirely new texture to his face, the outer layer thick and wiry wile the hairs underneath were almost like a soft down. She absently combed her fingers through it, gauging his reaction she started to trim away the longer lengths and discard them in the trash can resting next to her thigh.

His eyes opened only once during the process, but she whispered for him to go back to sleep and he obeyed without question.

Kate became a little more daring once she had cut away as much as she could without running the risk of grazing his skin. She shifted slightly, reaching under the sink for a half used bottle of shaving cream and a razor that he had never used and she had never gotten around to throwing out.

She massaged his temples before she even attempted to rub the shaving cream into his face. She knew that right now, he probably wouldn't agree with what she was slowly doing to him, chipping away at the mask which he was trying so hard to hide behind. She maintained slow, sensual, circular motions as she applied the cream. Her actions keeping him from doing much more than moaning lightly under the prickly itch of the razor; on some level it had to feel good to be rid of that thing taking over his face.

Jack had let Kate shave him many times before, but never quite like this. The more scruff she shaved away, the more of the real Jack he allowed her to see. She traced the now smooth lines around his lips with her index finger, savouring the velvety skin that was now a slight shade lighter than the rest of his face.

"I'm going to fix you for once, Jack." She assured him, wiping away a stubborn droplet of shaving cream clinging to his neck, with the back of her hand.

TBC

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Ok that is the first part. Please review if you want me to continue. :)

If you liked this one check out **Freefall**. It's Jate along with some Suliet and it's a season 6 fic. Fake Locke manages to turn Jack and some of the other's like he did Sayid and it is up to Kate to snap him out of it. There's also this problem of future Aaron along with a future Jaby and a future Sulby getting stranded in the past and having to watch all of this take place between their parents. :)

Next time: Jack is feeling a little more alert and is not impressed that he is now missing one very ugly beard. Him and Kate also have a well over due chat and perhaps a little Jate fluff as well.

I am also open to fic requests if anyone has any. :)


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